Amid the on­go­ing con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the award of $3.4 bil­lion in Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) con­tracts, there is the un­der­ly­ing ques­tion of whether State-fund­ed hous­ing projects go­ing back a few gen­er­a­tions have ad­e­quate­ly met the needs of res­i­dents for ba­sic and, in cer­tain in­stances, ex­pand­ed qual­i­ty shel­ter.

The is­sue of whether gov­ern­ment should get com­plete­ly out of the hous­ing in­dus­try and al­low the pri­vate sec­tor to take over the chal­lenge of pro­vid­ing af­ford­able hous­ing, es­pe­cial­ly for peo­ple at the low end of the in­come scale, al­so aris­es. Even with this ap­proach, ac­com­mo­da­tion could be made for Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide land at con­ces­sion­ary prices to the de­vel­op­ers to as­sist low-in­come earn­ers.

How­ev­er, one re­peat­ed con­cern which has at­tend­ed Gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor hous­ing de­vel­op­ment mod­els, has been the qual­i­ty of work­man­ship de­liv­ered by con­trac­tors and builders of the units. There has al­so been con­tention about al­leged graft and em­bed­ded cor­rup­tion al­leged to have gone in­to the award of con­tracts for con­struc­tion of the units.

Over decades, con­cerns have al­so been ex­pressed about poor qual­i­ty liv­ing, crime and oth­er neg­a­tive fea­tures in the HDC com­mu­ni­ties re­sult­ing from fam­i­lies and their lifestyles, in­clud­ing bro­ken homes, un­der­em­ploy­ment, the drug trade and sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­lies in which the heavy bur­den has fall­en on moth­ers and grand­moth­ers to cope.

An­oth­er very sig­nif­i­cant el­e­ment of the State hous­ing project mod­els has been an of­ten-re­peat­ed prac­tice of oc­cu­pants con­sis­tent­ly not be­ing able and/or re­fus­ing to pay their rental/mort­gage fees, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to a point at which there is evic­tion, and with it, the en­su­ing po­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions.

Notwith­stand­ing all of the prob­lems, there have been and con­tin­ue to be the mir­a­cle of the emer­gence of in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies who have come through the tri­als pre­sent­ed and con­tin­ue to con­tribute to pos­i­tive liv­ing and to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of fam­i­lies and in­di­vid­u­als from the “plan­nings,” hous­ing es­tates and apart­ment build­ings.

In the cir­cum­stances of to­day, and the in­ten­tion of the Gov­ern­ment to launch the $3.4 bil­lion hous­ing project award­ed to 11 pri­vate con­trac­tors, that ef­fort has been halt­ed by the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor (OPR) for scruti­ny.

But while the coun­try awaits the de­ter­mi­na­tion by the OPR as to the va­lid­i­ty and in­tegri­ty of the con­tracts award­ed, there is the need for a con­tin­u­ance of the search for an ad­e­quate mod­el to de­liv­er qual­i­ty hous­ing in cir­cum­stances de­void of cor­rupt prac­tices, and the cre­ation of an en­vi­ron­ment in which oc­cu­py­ing fam­i­lies will have a good chance at qual­i­ty liv­ing in­to the fu­ture.

In the past, and as pro­ject­ed in the present mod­el of con­struc­tion of the homes, suc­ceed­ing gov­ern­ments have sought and re­ceived the in­clu­sion of the pri­vate sec­tor to fund and build the homes. Such an op­tion has not com­plete­ly avoid­ed the many prob­lems as briefly de­scribed above.

How­ev­er, giv­en the his­to­ry of State in­volve­ment in pro­vid­ing a mea­sure of as­sis­tance to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of hous­ing for qual­i­ty liv­ing, es­pe­cial­ly for those at the low end of the eco­nom­ic lad­der, the time has come for a new and vi­able mod­el of home con­struc­tion.